Sometimes inspiration comes from places you’ve never heard of. Sometimes, it comes and you don’t answer the door. Sometimes, a hand holding yours seems warmer than your mother’s bosom. Sometimes a kiss would mean the world to someone. Sometimes somebody would pick you up and show you your right place and price. Sometimes, these dreams seem futile.

I started to write because I wanted to improve my handwriting but for you it might be your dinner or your wildest dream come true. I wasn’t made a star but I was born one. I do not shine for all like the sun but I wink with sparkling eyes at that special person. Sometimes, you never find that special someone.

When I walk the streets they look at me for I just walked out of their dreams. They say “he is my inspiration” but I have none. I walk alone without any inhibitions. All I got is time, leisure and power. What I lack is will. Will I?

That was the question. That was always the question. Sometimes, you need to ask the right questions. Answers are irrelevant. Someone did say so but I guess I was too busy with the question to notice who it was.

I walked into the rain, I walked all along with the sun and I walked out of the snow: I was. No. I am Perfection. But doesn’t that mean that I lack nothing? I believe I don’t. I don’t.

They often talk about a thousand different memories. I sing about them and they echo my lyrics. But what about my memories which always had four walls of thickest concrete about them? Am I a prisoner? But I am the only one who has known true freedom. I am that person who can touch anyone as per his whims while no one can touch him unless he desires that touch. And yet, he remains untouched by humanity. Only perfection touches him. He became Perfection.

Like the Sphinx, like Tireisias, like the Ardhanaareeshwara, he was complete in himself. Yes, I lack nothing; I am complete.

But when I touched her, a droplet of crystalline blood spilt from her chalice and I realized my imperfection. And she, like a naiad from my wet dreams, vanished into a puff of cassia fumes. For the first time, I realized my incompleteness. I wandered like a Fakir in search of that true music of my soul. She was a soulful melody who danced to my Sufi heart’s rhythm. I became a wandering sage and she became my melancholy. A happy melancholy. Transience became her eyes and through them I saw the Baul in me. My Iktara became I, me, myself.

And she talked to me for the first time. The ghunghroo of her feet matched my Damru’s joyful skipping of heartbeats.

Dugeun Dugeun.

My heart beats.

Dugeun Dugeun.

Her face seemed familiar for the first time and I recognized. It was she. My eyes, my ears, my taste, my smell, my touch, my emotions: it was all her. She was my all. She was me and I am she.

And I entered my trance, yet again. I was complete, again. I am complete, now. You are my inspiration. You are the light that illuminates the darkness of my heart.

Jang Keun-Suk will always remain to be a bright star that ignites the minds of many and this I dedicate to him. Be the same, Oppa.

Stars of Destiny

There was a Star weeping in my horizon when I woke up from that nightmarish slumber. His reddish gaze melted my icy eyes. Why are you hiding in the dark corners of the Night, I asked him. Sometimes the dark visage of the Night is brighter than the bright agony of the Dawn, he retorted. But why do diamonds run down your cheeks like this; I wished to pacify. The Moon, the Moon – he wept with a roaring sound. But the Moon is just miles away from you, I said. Why do you cry? She will be with you in some time, I smiled. She’s dead, he told me. She’s dead! The blood drained off her cheeks. The Sun sucked the darkness out of her. Now she’s but a corpse. She’s dead, she’s dead! He wept with a roaring sound. And he fell from the high Heavens.

I, who was waiting for him, caught him swiftly. Deep in my heart, I felt the pangs of guilt as I secretly enjoyed the fall, for I knew that he had a different destiny. Moon is not thy destiny, I sighed. Blasphemy! He roared. You speak venom! He spitted fire at me. The Moon, my Moon. He wept.

In a fortnight’s time, the Moon entered her bedchamber to shut herself away from the hues and melodies of the outer world. And he wept for her all through the day and the night. So I held his hands throughout the day and the night and I saw him breathe moist smoke and felt his chest burn in the acidic melancholy. It hurts, I know. I told him. Hold my hand, please. I told him. And the pain will course through your veins into mine. I told him. And we will be joined in the pain, I told him. He didn’t recognize the warm guilt boiling in my throat. He didn’t recognize the sweet love beating against my chest. But he knew that I could be trusted and he gave me the promise of sharing. Of sharing pain. Of sharing.

As the petals of the days that came by opened one after the other, we blossomed as blooms of the same wild shrub. His pain made him glow and my love made me so. We conducted the clouds as if we were Mozarts of our own realm. We drew tales in the water with our own blood while the swans read them with red pleasure.
What are you afraid of, I asked him. Of losing her again, he told me. But you don’t have her now, I pitched in. But if I did, I’d never want to lose her again. I cringed at the thought of that union. My sighs became little whirlwinds that made the maple trees shed their pristine red autumn’s share of leaves when it was only the earliest of spring.

Danpung-Nori.

They say maple trees constantly looked for something new; somebody new. For once, I hoped that they will make him look. Look for me? I begged my sibling maple spirit.

Maples reminded me of them. Mahua. Mahua, my sisters. I have basked in the glorious wine of their youth in the vain attempt to reach the skies; to reach him. They always told me that it wasn’t my time yet. I wish if I could see them again. And ask. Is it my time?

We floated on the clouds that took us to the heights of spring. The dewy blossoms smiled at us and we, as blossoms of a new world, camouflaged our radiance in a gleeful smile. The bright diamonds giggled as their crystalline shadows were cast on our feathery skin. Sunlight, he said, and smiled sadly.
I had to do it.

I leant towards him and placed a kiss, softly, on one of those reflections and they wavered in coy innocence. A drop of blood started to spread its roots across his otherwise pale face. The redness conquered his beautiful face. And I smiled sadly.

The sadness evaporated as he drew it out of my lips with his. Like a chill being pulled out from your chest through your mouth. A sweet chill. A chill you love.

A star, I own. I laughed in harmony with the laughter in his eyes as I said it.

And a star I made, that no one else can ever have. He said it with a proud, glittering smile.

Those eyes, those eyes! They make my breath vacillate in between my lungs and my throat. And yet, they are mine.

The Wings of Glorious Love swept us away from the clouds and hid us beneath its magnificence. The clouds played symphonies that were never heard before in Life or Death. The Wind passed invitations to watch the royal revelry of our love sealed in these Wings to all that’s ever walked the skies.

And a dew drop fell on to the Earth. And it was green and red and yellow and white. I held out my arms to him. Amidst all the whites that covered us, a red thread of passion, which grew out of my veins, exultingly rushed to meet his veins. And in that moment, we were one. Inseparable. Congruent. Yin and Yang.

The Night and the Dawn conjoined. The Stars in the high Heavens gleamed with pride. The mystery unveiled itself as it happened. The Earth stood in all stillness; in awe.

Like this:

Have you ever, even for once, thought that teaching little kids is an easy job? It’s not. I am telling you from my own experience.

Late at night, when all my best friends were probably snuggling cosily with their husbands or boyfriends, I was evaluating the answer sheets of twelve year olds. Quite a life, I have.

You know what I do when I get stressed out? I read poetry. I am that awful writer who always wished that one day I might write something which I wouldn’t regret later on in life. That never happened. I still write like a lovesick teenage girl. Yes, you got it right. I wouldn’t do well as a feminist.

I ran my fingers through my bookshelf and randomly picked up a poetry book and surprise, surprise! It was Blake’s lucky night. As I imagined a fiery, ever powerful man, pouring the flame of his candlelight into the sockets of a tiger which he just sculpted out of thin air, I stood awed. The tiger’s physique and the description were truly sensuous, to the point of hyperventilation even; that is if you know what I mean. The only relief I had after this quick escape to the realms of the imaginary was that ‘Twilight’ was not the first or only book in which people romanticized animals to the point of eccentricity.

I rushed to the kitchen to ease my restlessness by finding something to munch. I quickly made some salad, so that my hunger could find its salvation. Quietly gobbling down the vegetables, I switched on my laptop to find someone online to chat with. Apart from few random friends, nobody was online. At least, not the people I wanted to pour my heart out to. I was getting more restless with each passing second. What can I do?

I woke up the next morning to realize I got only two weeks of vacation left. Two weeks from now, the school will reopen and by then I’ll have to evaluate all the papers and make progress reports too. Surprisingly, I finished all that yesterday night. The perks of having nothing much to do, I should tell you.

I started packing after breakfast. I’ll have to reach the old farmhouse by the evening and set up the ambience for the meeting that was going to take place on the 13th of June. My best friends and I had decided to meet after 10 years and it was day after tomorrow. Even though we were in touch, thanks to technology, we never really got a chance to meet up not even once in these ten years. Five of them were married, two engaged and the one left has been in a steady relationship for 8 years now. I’ve always been the black sheep. An excellent example for the after effects of “playing with the fire”, I was. Some of them call me “commitment-phobic” and the others think I am too proud to be in a relationship with a man. Truth to be told, I got heartbroken once and then I promised myself that I’d never get to that position ever again. And I believe in keeping promises.

When I got to the old farmhouse, it was as quiet and beautiful as ever; like a loving mother, waiting for her children to come back. Look at her; she will forgive us all for our every sin. I asked the housekeeper to clean the place up and decorate the place with red and blue lights: fire and ice would be the theme. I set out to the town to order some flowers for day after. The florist’s place was literally “heaven on earth” with a hundred varieties of flowers and leaves adorning its every nook and corner. I smiled melancholically and they smiled back at me as if they knew my secrets; my pain.

There is this view of the lake on the way back to the farmhouse. There are these wooden benches and a boulevard of cherry trees. I always wished to live in a place like this. Never really liked the din and frenzy of city life, I should add. I sat down on one of those benches and conversed with the water and air about their own beauty. “How come you never age?” I asked them. They laughed and told me that they change with every rain and every drought; “It is you who don’t change”, they told me. “You can die, we can’t and therefore, you are luckier than us; we are cursed”. They looked sad when they engrossed themselves in their melancholic ramblings. I sighed and looked at the sky. She acknowledged my sorrow and sighed with me and the winds roared across the cherry trees.

With my eyes fixed at the distant nothingness, I failed to realize a dark, tall and lonely figure approaching me. It came and sat next to me. The wind brushed past our faces. The long lost fragrance of memories burned my nostrils. “I prayed much that you wouldn’t come”, I said. “I am cursed with a remarkable memory. Even though the optimist in me was made a martyr of love 10 years ago, I never stopped believing in myself”, he said. “Well done, Ry. You’ve managed to keep yourself as insane as you were”, I told him. I stood up and started walking. He followed me.

We walked into the realms of our past. There stood the younger version of us, holding hands and looking at each other with eyes that spoke of profound sadness. That was the first time he broke a promise: let’s part, he told me then. The Us from the present walked further down the memory lane and reached the college gates. Sports day, it was. Sitting in those stands with friends and watching the finale of the intercollegiate football match where Ry was a midfielder, I was waiting for them to win and to end the long awaited suspense. In twenty minutes, I did break it to Ry.

He proposed in the first year and me, being the haughty New Girl, rejected him and stuck to the Lets-Be-Friends theme. And on that last football match, I proposed to him. He accepted with a cheeky smile that said “You are stuck with me forever, girl”. One more month and college would end. But we were waiting for the end as we planned to make it all known to our parents. We were the craziest couple you could set your eyes on. Our wordplay was quite famous in the whole friend circle. Even more famous were our weird fights – yes, we used to fight for fun. We were that couple who enjoyed being at each other’s throat at every given opportunity; but our love was evident even in those cat-eats-rat games of ours.

The excitement and the adrenaline rush kept on increasing with each kiss and every slap. On the eve of the very last day, he proposed to marriage – the only thing left to do. As always, the coward in me rejected the notion. What was my excuse? We are too young to be married. He was furious. We got into a fierce cold war which resulted in a physical fight and eventually, in sweet lovemaking. I was leaving the next day and we won’t be able to meet up for years. Neither of us liked the idea. So we went for a therapeutic walk. Under the cherry trees, we sat reminiscing the past for a long time. A mad tripe of our insane days together flashed before our eyes. We were meant to be together, said our friends’ adoring eyes. You’ll be remembered, chanted the college walls. So we decided to part and meet in 10 years if we were really meant to be. It was then that he broke our promise. He cried. I never wanted our last meeting to end with tears. But he had to cry. That was how it was supposed to be. So much so that the poetry in his tears rung in my ears even after a decade.

My eyes found its destination and it was reciprocating the gaze. Ryan. How much I missed you! My eyes told him thus. You can read my eyes but I can read your sighs, said his eyes. I have been reading them for 10 years, give me some credit! – He added. I passionately gazed at those windows that showed me my dream. It came true.

“Can we walk into the future together?” he asked earnestly. I thought for a while. “Yes”, I said.
The sky split open to shower us with heavenly fireworks. Invisible crystalline flowers kept tickling us as it fell on our bodies. The Night conquered us with a majestic sweep of her arms. We stepped forward to enter into that wild dance with which the wind was engaged. It swept us off our feet and threw us into the crescent where we landed, giggling wildly. The laughter transgressed the boundaries of inflaming lust. And in that ecstatic moment, did we close our eyes to open it in the split of a second.

I found myself alone, waiting for the night to wake me up. I stood up and followed the quiet path to the old farmhouse. The grassy path whispered an occult chant into my weary ears. But I was too engrossed with the rhythm of my footsteps. An eternity awaits me. Not many get a chance to go back and change the past. My firm footsteps annoyed my tiny grassy friends but I marched on. My heart and foot marched hand in hand to go back to that day, to Ry and to a future that never existed before.